The Grey Lady of Bagram

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The Grey Lady of Bagram
by Yvonne Ridley
07/07/2008

Firstly, I want to start by saying a big thank you to Imran Khan for organizing this conference today. I heard Imran deliver a speech in the House of Commons recently with a great depth of passion for his country and his people. Recognising a politician of integrity – sadly an all too rare quality, not just in Pakistan but around the world, I knew he was the right person to turn to.

I am a journalist, peace activist and a member of the RESPECT Party led by George Galloway – he sends his salutations to Imran Khan and all of those present today … as you know George has a deep affection for Pakistan. But I am not here today to make a political speech – I am here today to make a personal appeal to my brothers and sisters across Pakistan … a country I often refer to as my second home. And I am hoping all of you, my friends and colleagues in the Pakistan press corps, will help me reach out to your viewers, listeners and readers.

As you know, I embraced Islam in June 2003 joining what I consider to be the biggest and best family in the world. I like to think that as part of that family, if you need help I will come running just as if I need help you will lend a hand. Today I am crying out for help – not for me, but for a Pakistan woman who you and I have never met, but she is our sister in Islam and she is in desperate need. She has been held in isolation by the Americans in neighbouring Afghanistan.

As you know I was also held in Afghanistan, in prison for 10 days at the hands of the Taliban in September 2001. My story made international headlines, front page pictures and major stories on television. I was released on humanitarian grounds without charge even though I was guilty of entering the country without a passport or visa. But there has been not one word, not one paragraph about Prisoner 650 – the Grey Lady of Bagram … a murderous detention facility under the control of the US Military and intelligence services.

I call her the Grey Lady because she is almost a ghost, a spectre whose cries and screams continue to haunt those who heard her. In truth, I wondered for a while if she really existed. She first came to my attention when I read Enemy Combatant, a book by ex- Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg. Moazzam is a British citizen born and raised in Birmingham.

In February 2002, Moazzam was seized by the CIA in Islamabad. No reasons were given for his arrest. He was hooded, shackled and cuffed and flown to the U.S. detention facility at Kandahar, then to Bagram airbase where he was held for approximately a year before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. government labeled him an “enemy combatant,” although he was never charged with a crime.

In all, Moazzam spent three years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. He was subjected to over three hundred interrogations as well as death threats and torture. At Bagram, he witnessed the killing of two fellow detainees. In January 2005, he was finally released and published a book about his experience. One section is devoted to the brutality of Bagram. He wrote: “I began to hear the chilling screams of a woman next door. My mind battled with questions I was too afraid to ask. "What if it was... my wife?"

“Eventually I did agree to say whatever they wanted me to say, to do whatever they wanted me to do. I had to finish it. I agreed to be their witness to whatever. At the end of it all, I asked them, "Why have you got a woman next door?" They told me there was no woman next door. But I was unconvinced. Those screams echoed through my worst nightmares for a long time. And I later learned in Guantánamo, from other prisoners, that they had heard the screams, too, and believed it was my wife. They had been praying for her deliverance.”

Well, when I first read his story I thought perhaps the CIA had played tape recordings as part of mental torture – but I now know that what Moazzam heard were the very real cries of a woman in genuine distress … a Pakistan woman.

What Moazzam and other Bagram detainees heard has also been corroborated by four Arabs who escaped from Bagram in July 2005. While on the run one gave an interview to al Arabiya in which he not only confirmed he had heard a woman’s screams, but he had seen her. He revealed how the male prisoners in Bagram had gone on hunger strike for six days to try and improve her conditions. She was treated to exactly the same brutal regime as the male prisoners.

Bizarrely enough, that interview went out recently on YouTube but was brought down several days ago without notice so I am unable to give you a copy today. But what I also know, without going into too much detail, is that the Grey Lady is registered as Prisoner 650 – you see the US military has a file and records on her so they can not deny her existence.

Today I am making a demand that the US military hands over the Grey Lady immediately. We do not know her identity, we do not know the state of her mind, we do not know the extent of the abuse or torture. What I do know is that this would never happen to a western woman – what is wrong with the US military? Don’t they value a Muslim woman, is her life worthless, does she not deserve to be treated with respect? In truth I don’t think any of us with a conscience can rest until she is released.

Sadly, she is not the only one – and my colleague from Cage Prisoners – Saghir Hussain – will give more detail on Pakistan’s other Lost Souls known as The Disappeared. All, like the Grey Lady of Bagram, have been illegally abducted by the secretive intelligence agencies. They began disappearing in 2001 with the onset of the so-called war on terror.

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